Together with the transition metal carbides and borides, the transition metal nitrides belong to a family of materials that features an unusual combination of outstanding properties, among which are exceptional hardness, high melting point, metallic luster with sometimes vivid colors, and simple metallic structures combined with excellent electrical and thermal conductivities. This combination ...

Dedicated to Professor Heinrich Nöth on the occasion of his 85th birthday The compounds Ca(Fe1−xNix)2As2 with the tetragonal ThCr2Si2-type structure (space group I4/mmm) show a continuous transition of the interlayer As–As distances from a non-bonding state in CaFe2As2 (dAs−As = 313 pm) to single-bonded As2 dimers in CaNi2As2 (dAs−As = 260 pm). Magnetic measurements have revealed weak ferromagn...

Many compounds of the transition elements have certain properties which are not possessed by other compounds, due to the presence of the partially-filled shells of the d electrons in the transition-element ions. Because of interesting magnetic, superconducting, mechanical, and structural properties, they are materials of fundamental importance for magnetic storage devices, superconductors and i...

Inorganic chemistry became a passion for me as a graduate student in the 1950s. It was exciting to be part of the renaissance of the discipline, and I am pleased to have contributed to its strength. Physical concepts applied to the understanding of the properties of transition metal compounds guided our work initially. In the 1970s, probably as a direct result of the world abandoning the gold s...

SalNa (sodium salinomycin) reacts with divalent transition metal ions of Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) to produce novel compounds characterized by various spectroscopic methods. The interaction of metal (II) ions with SalNa results in the formation of mononuclear complexes of a general composition of [M(Sal)2·(H2O)2] nH2O (n = 0 or 2) where the divalent cations replace Na ions from the cavi...

Transition metal carbides and phosphides have shown tremendous potential as highly active catalysts. At a microscopic level, it is not well understood how these new catalysts work. Their high activity is usually attributed to ligand or/and ensemble effects. Here, we review recent studies that examine the chemical activity of metal carbide and phosphides as a function of size, from clusters to e...

In a recent publication [Galanakis I et al 2006 Phys. Rev. B 74 140408(R)] we have shown that in the case of CrAs and related transition-metal chalcogenides and pnictides, crystallizing in the zinc-blende structure, the excess of the transition-metal atoms leads to half-metallic ferrimagnetism. The latter property is crucial for spintronic applications with respect to ferromagnets due to the lo...

In this study, electronic structures of ground state of pure vanadium sub-nano clusters, Vn (n=2-5), and their interactions with small ligands for example CO and triplet O2 molecules are investigated by using density functional theory (DFT) calibration at the mPWPW91/QZVP level of theory. The favorable orientations of these ligands in interaction with pure vanadium sub-nano clusters were determ...